This invention relates to an apparatus for printing. One problem with impact-type printers has been the noise which is generated by the operation of such printers. Thermal printers, on the other hand, are of the non-impact type, and are therefore generally much more quiet in operation. Thermal printers are usually of the dot matrix type, comprising a plurality of individual elements in the form of a matrix which can be energized in selected patterns to form the numbers, letters, symbols and other indicia needed. Each selected element must be heated and cooled from one character print to the next. Such printers consequently are subject to burn-out and failure, as well as to wear from contact with the ribbon or record medium which they engage, since they are normally not moved into and out of engagement with the record medium for each character printed. In addition, it is difficult to obtain a letter-quality print character with a dot matrix unless a very high density head comprising many individual elements is employed. Such a head is relatively expensive, and will probably need to be replaced fairly frequently, due to the possibility of wear and burn-out of one or more of the elements making up such a head. High quality of print is particularly important in printing MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) characters such as are commonly used on documents such as bank checks and which are capable of being read by machine. It will be seen that a thermal printer capable of printing a full-face, non-matrix character would overcome the problems described above, and would be particularly valuable in the case of printing MICR characters.